A Poo-Flinging Extravaganza

January 9th

A while ago a fantastical rumor was proven true to me here. While I’d seen mice in cartoons scaring the living daylight out of elephants thousands of times their size, I never gave much thought to it being anything other than a massive (or tiny?) irony. The truth of it is as follows: mice carry a disease that thrives in fecal matter, the likes of which can easily find its way into an elephant’s food, should that mouse be gnawing on some tasty treat meant for the enormous beasts. How did I learn this? After a brief lecture on why we sweep the grain room twice. Not only do we sweep it twice, but we cover every open food bucket to ensure that our large friends here do not meet their demise at the hand of such an ironic fate. Apparently the amount of caution can never be too great—a few years back the Columbus Zoo lost all but one of their kangaroos to the same tragedy.
Today started like any other day, waking up early to a bowl of cereal and a cup of not-so-great coffee with a healthy amount of non-fat cream. Who thought of that paradox, anyhow? What was different today was not noticed until we reached the African barn. The walls. Dear Lord, the walls. Toby had apparently become bored with being stuck in his stall for days upon days due to the harsh weather, and had taken it upon himself to pepper—no, I’d say paint—the walls with his shit. Someone last night had had one hell of a time flinging shit every which way throughout the night. Thank god Max hadn’t followed suit. And of course, which wall had Toby thrown his shit? The one we cleaned yesterday—no big deal, buddy. For some reason, today was a really shitty day. I mean that quite literally. We had just finished cleaning up Amy’s pile when she decided to go again. Bets, who had already gotten two baths by that time, took the opportunity to roll—a full-out coat-yourself-in-poo extravaganza—in her mother’s steaming heap of poo. Then there was Max, who was simply being a shithead. For the past few days, Max has been particularly cantankerous, which makes the whole crew here a bit uneasy. If Max finally figures out that the guys in charge can’t do an ounce of legitimate damage to him, it’s all over. Over for training him, over for him learning, over for the trainers. Over. So, for now we’re staying away from Shithead and focusing on more pressing matters. Like de-pooing the Serengeti.
The Serengeti is the dubbed name of Toby and Max’s yard, the largest expanses of freedom on the property, reserved entirely for the bulls. For some reason, we clean Peggy, Booper, and Hank’s yard every day when they go out, but never Toby’s and Max’s. The result became evident as we drove the truck across the grassland in search (or was it more of a search for a spot where the truck could go without running over some ellie poo?) of frozen heaps of dung. Shit was everywhere. We filled the spreader once today and once yesterday, and yet there remains an insurmountable amount of shit out in that field. The best part about it is the fact that, as it is 25 degrees here, the piles come up in big frozen heaps, and can simply be hurled into the spreader. The issue of the matter is the actual act of getting those piles uprooted from the frozen earth. After a while we got the hang of it, loosening the piles and then carrying the mass heaps to the bed or simply chucking them overhead. You’ll be proud to hear that I’m a 4 for 5 kind of thrower, while everyone else, as of yet, has been 0 for 0’s. Seems that, despite the great differences in size and species and such, Toby and I may have something in common after all.

Tomorrow's topics: Jesus Cat, Bets the Escape Artist, and Wal-Mart Adventures.

Stay Tuned.